A study carried out by paleontologists from the University of Chile identified two types of frogs that lived more than 70 million years ago alongside dinosaurs
A team of researchers from the University of Chile identified two types of frogs that inhabited Patagonia more than 70 million years ago along with dinosaurs such as the battleship Stegouros lengassen, recently found in areas near the Torres de Paine in the extreme south.
The study, published in the international journal Cretaceous Research, confirmed that both families survived the mass extinction that occurred 66 million years ago after the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid, a milestone that caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs, and they are related to endemic species that currently occupy the area, such as the Chilean giant frog.
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It was after two paleontological prospecting campaigns carried out in 2017 and 2018 that the researchers found these new pieces of prehistoric fauna located in the Valle del Río de las Chinas, being the southernmost fossil record of this type of frogs globally until today.
The researcher of the Paleontological Network of the University of Chile and scientist in charge of the study of these fossils, Felipe Suazo, explained that these frogs lived in a climate with a lot of rain and mild temperatures in summer, with an ecosystem sustained by the meander of a river mouth.
“(In these ecosystems) there were forests of ferns, Nothofagus conifers. Probably, there were flood areas, which were populated by various animals adapted to freshwater environments, such as frogs, turtles and even crocodiles. Complementing this particular fauna, Remains of extinct mammalian lineages have also been identified, like Magallanodon and Orretherium; besides dinosaurs ”, explained Suazo.
Chicxulub survivors
The families Pipidae (Kuruleufenia) and Calyptocephalellidae (Calyptocephalella), to which the fossils found belong, They managed to overcome the mass extinction event that wiped the dinosaurs off the face of the Earth, with relatives that to date can be found in both Chilean and Argentine Patagonia.
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“The reasons why they managed to survive and proliferate during the Cenozoic, the time that continues to the Mesozoic, are not clear. However, the fossil record shows that both families proliferated with a diversity of particular species in South American Patagonia,” Suazo pointed out. .
“The morphology of these fossils It is almost identical to that of the bones of the current Chilean great frog, but due to conservative reasons it was decided to assign these fossils only to a family level, waiting for new remains that allow us to corroborate whether or not they belong to the genus Calyptocephalella or to a new genus still unknown to science ”, added the scientist.
“Living fossil”
The family Calyptocephalellidae, a true “living fossil”, explained Suazo, is today threatened by human action.
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“This family is currently endemic to Chile, that is to say, the species belonging to this family are only distributed in our country, which is far from its evolutionary history, where it was possible to find them distributed in the Chilean and Argentine Patagonia and even in the Antarctic Peninsula ”, he stated.
Nowadays, this species is considered one of the largest in the world and it is classified as a vulnerable category on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to the loss of freshwater ecosystems in recent years. (I)
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